The Nathan MacKinnon contract and how it affects the Leafs

You had to know this post was coming right? And it probably doesn’t take much effort to guess at how this affects the Leafs. So let’s jump right into the inevitable discussion of how Nathan MacKinnon’s contract will impact not only Auston Matthews’ next contract, but likely Mitch Marner’s next contract as well.
Here’s the contract:
$12.8 AAV for 8 years with a full no-movement clause throughout. The deal was signed when Nathan MacKinnon is 27 years old, the deal is front-loaded and pays him a $16.5M combined salary and signing bonus in year one, transitions in year 4 (2026-27) to $12.15M and drops to $9.9M in year 5 and stays at that until the end of his contract. MacKinnon’s contract is largely paid in signing bonuses and has an escalated salary to reflect the minimum salary being likely to rise. The signing bonus structure means it would be a gigantic pain in the ass to buy out. The one year (year 4, 2026-27) where the majority of MacKinnon’s contract is paid as salary instead of signing bonus coincides with the expiration of the current CBA. Based on the current salary cap of $82.5M, MacKinnon’s contract takes up 15.27% of the salary cap. That’s the import …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

The bats come alive as the Blue Jays defeat the Rangers 11-7

As a Blue Jays fan, the most satisfying wins are probably wins against other AL East foes. Outside of that, it’s equally as satisfying to watch the Blue Jays beat the Texas Rangers, especially when they can score 11 runs in four innings against them.
Toronto got to Rangers starter Kohei Arihara early and often, Bo Bichette continued to stay hot, and the Blue Jays had enough offense to stave off another late rally from Texas with a 11-7 win to clinch the series.
Arihara came into tonight’s game with an already-inflated ERA, and Toronto made sure to have him follow the trend. The Blue Jays scored in the first inning for the second straight night, this one being a 4-run frame thanks to a pair of 2-run singles from Alejandro Kirk and Santiago Espinal.
Adolis Garcia would smack a 3-run home run off of Kevin Gausman in the bottom half of the frame, making it 4-3, but that would be long forgotten once Toronto got back up to bat.
Espinal added another RBI in the 3rd inning, doubling in Cavan Biggio. Next up was Raimel Tapia, who absolutely crushed a 3-run home run 428 feet. It was Tapia’s second-longest home run this season, expanding Toronto’s lead to 8-3.

Ra …

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Author: Evan Stack / Blue Jays Nation

Best of what’s left: pooper scooping free agency for the Leafs

The Leafs’ cap situation and near-complete roster probably support the notion that there isn’t any reason to worry about who is left in free agency or not. Still, as we saw yesterday, trades are going to happen around the league and as a result, there is a possibility of cap space or holes in the roster. That’s why we’ll put in some work regarding who is left even if the Leafs free up space by moving all three of Holl, Muzzin, and Kerfoot, that probably isn’t enough to take a run at Nazem Kadri. So I’ll reluctantly exclude him from the list, and focus on the players that seem like they could fit the Leafs’ cap situation, and address some kind of need for Toronto.
As a refresher, here’s the Leafs cap situation (think depth chart, not line combos. I assure you I’m not suggesting line combinations in the below table, otherwise at the very least Joey Anderson would be there.)

Gross, right? No money, can’t even sign a league minimum player let alone the two RFAs. Let’s clean that up a bit more to give you all some peace of mind as to why we’re talking about free agents still.

There. That seems a little bit better. There is still a minimum of $2.25M that needs to be committed to those fourth line roster spots, but with three standard players contracts still available it at least gives the illusion that anything is possible and the Leafs can still add or at the very least the Sandin and Engvall signings start looking feasible. So if we’re talking about the 50 SPC limit, and two of the remaining contracts are spoken for wit …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation